Delhi capital of cancer in India, Bangalore at bottom of chart

And it’s already set to create a stir, weeks before its scheduled release, with New Delhi and parts of the North East, especially Aizawl, cornering most space.

The data, collected over two years, shows the highest cancer incidence in the Capital—103 cases per 1,00,000 men and 113.9 per 1,00,000 women, though some specific districts elsewhere have shown higher incidence.

Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital, is the other hotspot, showing a high incidence of various types of cancer, the atlas shows.

There’s good news though for India’s other capital—of software—with Bangalore logging the lowest incidence in men among urban population—Bhopal makes the same grade among women.

To be released by the Health Ministry, the atlas maps various types of the disease and its incidence among men and women across 105 pockets in the country to ensure better diagnosis, infrastructure and link cancer to specific environments. It also maps the country on the basis of higher incidence of a particular kind of cancer (see box).

The atlas, prepared using the National Cancer Registry Programme in Bangalore, is part of a project funded by the World Health Organisation.

It involved an extensive survey of more than 200,000 patients with histopathologically confirmed cancers, whose details were sent to the registry online.

According to an ICMR document, the aim of the study was to know the similarities and differences in patterns of cancer across the country, besides strengthening pathology departments.

Knowing patterns, according to the researchers, ‘‘would provide important leads in undertaking research, in targeting cancer control measures and in examining the clinical outcome.’’

However, ICMR has also pointed out the study’s limitations—in several states such as UP and Bihar, Jharkand and Chhattisgarh, hardly any information on cancer cases was available.